dant-mír

nnn, n. Usually identified with curad-mír `the
heroes' morsel,' but dant-mír seems to signify a piece of
food which, according to old custom, was put between the
teeth of the dead: rosfúair hi fástig oc fuiniu héisc for
indéin ┐ bae cenn Lomnai for bir hi cinn na tened. in
cétlucht doralad dind indéin rantai Coirpri doa tríb non-
buraib ┐ ní tardad dantmír i mbeolu in chinn olṡodain ba
geis la Fiannu the first batch that was taken from the
gridiron, Coirpre distributes it to his thrice nine men; but
the `dantmír' was not put into the mouth of the head
though it was a `geis' with the ancients (to do so) (rather: 'a thing which it was a geis with the Fíanna to do'
RC xxxvii 19)
Corm.
Bodl. 30. 2
. Stokes's interpolation is wrong and disturbs
the sense. The custom must have been deeply rooted, for
in the old Egerton fragment of Finn's death,
ZCP i 464 sq.
,
it is told how supernatural powers secure the dant-mír for
the decapitated head of Finn: confuaradar iascaire na
Boinde. ceathrar dóibh .i. trímaic Uircreann ┐ Aicleach...
conécmaing Aicleach a cheann de ┐ corubhradar maic U.—
rucsat a chenn leo i ḟásteach ┐ roḟuinsit a niasc ┐ roran-
nsat i nde. a cheann hi cind tenedh. tabraid dantmír dó
or fer dubh docluichi ó na mair Aicleach. rorannadh in
tiasc i nde .i. fo thrí ┐ badar trí cuibhrind ann béos. cidh
so or fer díbh. is ann isbert an cend a cind tened:

ised fodera an tresraind libhsi cen síl napeli

arnatabhar damsa oc proind uaibsi mo ṁír ma...ele.

The Brehon Laws punished the removal of the `dant-
mír' with `athgabáil treise': athgabáil treise i folomrad
do mairb (ds.fem.)...im archor auptha mimir do chor do
choin dantmir do breith ó fir besa ái carrying away the
`dantmír' from the person to whom it belongsLaws i 176.
4
; to which the commentary adds the following note: .i.
curadmír .i. do breith ón fir isa hae hé .i. diablad in
cura[d]mír no eneclann .i. amail roberta ó Choinculainn.
eneclann and ar treisi,
ib. 180. 3 f.b.
This seems only an
attempt of the commentator to find some sense in a word
that naturally enough was obscure to him, as the pagan
custom it refers to was bound to have disappeared with
Christianity. The appearance of the Welsh dant
in a word like dant-mír is strange. One expects dét-mír.—
Obs.

2 dar

in dar lim
adv (dar lat, &c.) methinks, methought;
adverbial phrase of unexplained origin (in spite of Stokes,
Lism. L. 385 a
). Synonymous with da, ata, atar, inda,
indar, with which it should also be etymologically connected.
The following is a synopsis of the forms occurring:—

Attar in the old text
Anecd. iii 59
= atar (i.e. addar) as
the frequent writing adar proves. Ata (i.e. adda) and inda
are parallel forms; but they do not, as Quiggin (Vorton.
Wörter p. 10) thinks, both render a spoken †edàr. The
interchange between Wb ata: Mil inda recalls that be-
tween Tur, Sg, Laws, LU adás: Mil indás (adoasa,
Tur 25a
;
adaas quam est
Sg 190 a 4
; adas,
Laws v 370. 1
f.b.
; ná bad
lia a chénel ata buiden,
Trip. i 148. 7
; am anáithiu atæsiu
LU,
IT ii2 213 l. 18
). For the use of in compare perhaps
Wb 5 b 34
: si enim Deus naturalibus ramis non pepercit,
gl. .i. indat iudei
(the branches) which the Iudaei are (which
the I. form). The short form da may be original or
shortened from ata, the stress falling on the ultimate (noch
da lim, Wb, almost as is-na-naicci, cach-la-sel and the like);
in the Carm. Mil. it interchanges with inda to suit the
metre; similarly dar and indar in SR. The usual ex-
planation of the Mid.-Ir. indar as influenced by the
deponent verb is wrong, as the form seems to have arisen
at a time when the deponent was already on the wane.
Early occurrences are
SR 1674
: dar lia ba dia airchisecht,
and
6079
: indar la; it is quite possible, however, that
the original had `da lia ba dia a.' and `inda.' The r
originates from the Mid.-Ir. preposition ra, ri = Old-Ir. la, fri,
the r becoming an integral part of the preceding da; indar
la, then, is a contamination of inda-ra and inda-la: comp.
indarra Loegaire in the LU-version of the
FBr. § 64
. A
similar development is shown by Mod.-Ir. dóigh, maith and
aice, which in common speech often become dóil, mail
and aicil:
an dóigh leat? Is dóil; an maith leat?Is
mail
(Kerry); i naicil = i naice.